The present disclosure relates to a battery module including cooling fins of which mounting directions are alternately arrayed.
Recently, with the increasing of technical development and demands of mobile devices, demands of rechargeable secondary batteries as energy sources are rapidly increasing, and thus more researches on the secondary batteries are being carried out to cope with such diverse demands. Also, the secondary batteries have attracted considerable attention as power sources for electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (Plug-In HEVs), which have been proposed as solutions to air pollution and the like caused by existing gasoline and diesel vehicles that use fossil fuels.
Therefore, the electric vehicles (EVs) capable of traveling using only a battery and the hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) using a battery in combination with an existing engine, have been developed, some of which have been commercialized. For the secondary batteries as power sources for EVs and HEVs, nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries are commonly used. However, recent researches on using lithium secondary batteries having high energy density, high discharge voltage, and output stability are being actively carried out, some of which have reached the commercialization.
When such secondary batteries are used in a device or an apparatus such as a vehicle power source and an electric power storage device, which require high capacity, the secondary batteries are used in the form of a battery module in which a plurality of battery cells are arranged.
FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic view showing a lateral configuration of a battery module in accordance with the related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, a battery module 100 is provided by stacking and arraying cartridges 120 with a battery cell 110 interposed therebetween.
The cartridge 120 includes a cooling fin 122 fixed to a cartridge frame 121. In particular, a guide part 122a formed on an outer peripheral edge of the cooling fin 122 is disposed in one side direction of the cartridge frame 121, and thus the cooling fin 122 is fixed in position.
In this case, there is a swelling phenomenon in which the battery cell 110 interposed between the cartridges 120 becomes inflated due to a gas generated inside thereof, in an abnormal operating condition of the battery module 100.
In the cartridge 120 constituting the battery module 100, however, all of the guide parts 122a of the cooling fins 122 are arrayed in the same mounting direction, so that the battery cell 110 is inflated in a direction of the other side of the cartridge frame 121, in which the guide part 122a of the cooling fin 122 is not supported by the cartridge frame 121, resulting in the swelling phenomenon. Accordingly, the swelling phenomenon is concentrated on the battery module 100 in one lateral direction, so the deformation of the battery module 100 occurs intensively in the one lateral direction.
In addition, the swelling phenomenon, which occurs to be biased to the one lateral direction, accelerates damage that is produced by deformation of the battery module 100 and a stress accumulating due to the deformation. Accordingly, the swelling phenomenon acts as a factor to deteriorate the safety of the battery module 100.
Recently, although additional structures are inserted between the cartridges so as to suppress the deformation of the battery module caused by the swelling phenomenon, this addition of the structures causes the increasing of the size or the weight of the battery module.
Thus, there is great need for technologies that may fundamentally solve the above-described limitations.